laws of man's own making that are at fault. Had we the economic laws
that belong to a republic, instead of those that belong to a despotism,
the foreign markets could be entirely closed to us, and all our people
would still have enough of all things that are necessary to life. And
those able men who have gone into the domain of natural philosophy, to
see what they could find to advance and benefit the human race, have
found so much, and brought about such a change in the industrial world,
that they have completely bewildered our political philosophers, who
have been utterly unable to make room for the labor-saving inventions
and discoveries of those men, until the confusion and distress resulting
from the incompetence of our political philosophers to adjust the laws
to meet the changed conditions are beginning to make us look upon the
inventors as our enemies, instead of our benefactors.

The work of the world consists principally in raising food and
manufacturing the things we wear, and the forwarding of both to the
consumer. And the great inventions of the McCormicks, Howes, Fultons,
Stephensons, and rest have made this work so easy that the labor done in
two months now is equivalent to the labor done in twelve months a few
years ago. That is why they are great inventions. Yet our law-makers are
still legislating for conditions that disappeared with the ox-goad,
hand loom, lapstone, and sickle, and are continually trying to devise
ways and means by which the labor of the country can be kept employed
the year round. What doing? When they find out how to make you wear
twenty pairs of shoes at a time, they will have found out how to keep
the shoe factories running the year round, not before.

The natural philosopher can overcome physical difficulties; the
political philosopher cannot overcome economic ones.